This Book Is Not Yet Rated (Peter Bognanni)

This Book Is Not Yet Rated
Peter Bognanni
Dial Books
Fiction, YA General Fiction/Humor
**** (Good)

DESCRIPTION: Since before he can reliably remember, Ethan Ashby has loved movies, thanks to his film professor father and the local Green Street Cinema. From obscure foreign films to modern popcorn flicks, there's nothing he won't watch. But it wasn't until his dad's unexpected death three years ago that his love became an obsession.
Now the de-facto manager of the Green Street after the old manager walked away (even though Ethan's only seventeen), he tells himself he's too busy to study for a second crack at the SATs and work on college admissions or do any of the things his mother keeps pushing him to do to "get on with life"... and, in truth, there's a lot to do at the decrepit old cinema, what with the worn-out seats and aging equipment and the rat issue, none of which help with declining ticket sales. Then a man shows up with eviction papers: the university that owns the land plans to demolish the place, and with it Ethan's last physical tie to his late father's legacy. Just when he's reeling from that, an old friend returns to town unexpectedly: Raina Allen, the girl he used to have a crush on until she was "discovered" and moved to Los Angeles to kick off a film career. He'd thought their friendship was over when she didn't even text him after his father died, but now she's asking about him, like she wants to mend bridges... or maybe more.
In the movies, there would surely be a way for the underdog hero Ethan Ashby to both save the Green Street Cinema and get the girl... but life is not a movie, not even for a young man who lives and breathes films.

REVIEW: The aging old grand dame filmhouse, the evil developer, the misfit employees, the one-time friend turned rising Hollywood starlet seeming to materialize at the exact right place and exact right time to fix everything wrong in the young main character's life... This Book Is Not Yet Rated has all the ingredients for a solid rom-com, a coming-of-age drama, a rebellious last stand against the inevitable March of Progress, a love letter to movies and movie lovers, or a dozen other familiar stories. This could result in a tangled mess, a forgettable flop, or - as is the case here - a story with humor, sadness, hope, and pain built around a surprisingly solid heart.
Interspersing the narrative with notes on films and film making, Ethan tells a story of what turns out to be a pivotal time in his life. When his father died, he lost all interest in his real life; despite graduating early, he has no interest in pursuing the higher education he once wanted - not even to pursue, like his father, an academic career studying films. Instead, he hides in movies of all stripes, even ones he doesn't necessarily like. Ethan can drop quotes from hundreds of iconic films, and does whenever he can't think of what else to say, another way he uses movies to shield himself from a world he can't always make sense of, let alone find a place in. Meanwhile, he's been the acting manager of the Green Street Cinema, the staff of which form the closest things to friends he has. They call him "Wendy", after the girl who becomes the impromptu "mother" to the Lost Boys in Peter Pan, and a peculiar collection of wayward souls they are indeed, all of whom seem like they'd be lost without the Green Street. At home, Ethan struggles to cope with a mother who seems intent on moving on and seeming to forget about the husband she lost, who even suggests that his love of movies and his job at the cinema are holding him back from his own healing. How can she not understand how his world fell apart when his dad died, how movies are literally his lifeline? When the eviction notice is delivered, it feels like his world is falling apart all over again... but when Raina returns, he sees a glimmer of hope. At one time, they were best friends. She even talked him into joining a theater group, though he was never interested in acting. Their relationship frayed and apparently disintegrated after she left town and started appearing in her own movies, to the point where she never even texted him condolences for his father's passing. Now that she's back, he has understandably mixed feelings - and when he realizes why she returned, those feelings get even more complicated. As he's dealing with her, and the re-ignition of the torch he carried for her, he's trying to figure out how to save the Green Street, and why nobody but the Lost Boys seems to care about the destruction of a local cinematic icon. It could all easily fall into stilted cliches and obvious plot points, but Bognanni manages to add more nuance and character development, as Ethan finally learns to see the world and the people around them for who they are; even the "evil developer" has a backstory worth knowing, and isn't some plot-shaped villain existing solely to goad the protagonist to heroism. Along the way, Ethan comes to realize just what it is he's really resisting, and what about it is worth fighting for versus what needs to be released, unless he wants the movie of his own life to be a sad and drifting tragedy.
I enjoyed it more than I expected, though I think the ending could've been a little stronger.

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